The "No-Tell-Motel": Branding Nostalgia

“What Los Angeles lacks in history, it compensates for generously in imagination”, Karen Yossman wrote in a 2020 article about André Balazs’s plans to convert the notorious "Castle on the Hill" into a private club to weather Los Angeles’ lock-down.? It never happened, and whether you know it or not, that's something to be grateful for.?

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How has the Chateau Marmont remained relevant for so long in a city as achingly modern and slavishly devoted to change, as Los Angeles? How can a 100 year old gothic castle with mismatched rooms and a checkered past still stand sentry over Sunset Boulevard?

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“So great is the rate of change,” wrote Richard G. Lillard in Eden in Jeopardy, “and so rapid is the increase in land values, that the life of many structures is from fifteen to thirty years, and it is a rare landmark building that can survive the crane”.?

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And yet, there's no doubt that the Chateau Marmont remains an iconic symbol of Los Angeles elegance, celebrity and glamor.? Just last night W Magazine 's “Best Performances Pre-Golden Globes” party was held at the Chateau – ground zero for celebrity action.? In true Chateau style, privacy was the theme: Barricades held back a horde of fans and frenzied paparazzi from a check-in line filled with A-list stars, Oscar nominees and winners that rivaled Sunday’s Globes.? How is this possible? How does a dilapidated old building remain the center of gravity for a town turning on a dizzying axis of "new"? Why are its before-and-after partys always more relevant than any main event?

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What draws Hollywood luminaries to the “Castle on the Hill”, even as they become increasingly self-aware that their days are, if not numbered, being closely tallied?? Certainly it’s not the hotel’s humble appointments — it’s ”dog-eared tastiness”.? There's more than skin deep — something that neither young stars, or old, have ever quite put their finger on.? Having stayed there once long ago, and continued to watch it lovingly from afar, I feel I might be able to.? And after all, it’s my job to try. ?

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Magical Realism is defined as what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe.? This to me defines the Chateau perfectly:? a meticulous, imperfect, history-rich environment that plays host to the ineffable, and the ethereal.? It’s a kind of library for unwritten epics, a storehouse of lives that have come and gone, mostly in the spotlight, but hardly understood. To call it a time capsule would be like slandering a derelict space station — or maybe a small planet.

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I often feel — in today’s creative industry especially – a longing for times I have never lived through, and I don’t think I’m alone in that.? We’ve watched films like Babylon, Once upon a Time…, and (if you know) Sophia Coppola’s Somewhere, and we get swept away to times we know nothing about, but feel sure we missed out on, and ache for...as we ache for authenticty — our last, greatest commodity.

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Maybe it is a more than a little personal for me:? my grandfather made a go at screen-writing in LA in the early 60s, but the pre-Nixon studios weren’t prepared for his brand of all-too-real science fiction, and he had little patience for them in return.?? My mother and father met in The Langham lobby.? I swept in to rent in a vulnerable market, when you couldn’t even view an apartment without an N95 mask and rubber gloves.? But that’s LA. We’re talking about one building; one of Lillard’s "endangered landmarks."?

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As a boy, my father brought us to the Chateau Marmont on one of his mysterious business jaunts.? Back then, it wasn’t the “Castle on the Hill”.? In the Post-Belushi, pre-Jay-Z / Beyoncé Oscar party era…it really wasn’t a big deal.? It was still just the “No-Tell-Motel”: a place where “…total discretion, total privacy, total protection, and a total sense of safety”, pervaded.? The perfect vacation for my family.? I will always remember that stay; that sense that we had just traded apartments for a little while —?that we were still home, still safe, but definitely somewhere new and exciting.

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As a brand builder, I wanted to honor that feeling:? part nostalgia, part “what’s next?”.? Because after all, brand is 90% feeling, and 1% function — just like an imaginary castle in an onion field on a hill.?

Through this lens, this way of thinking, maybe we can each revisit our personal “Golden Age," —the times we never actually lived through, but have a right to long for— without getting pulled in, swallowed by stark indictments of our current day: this meandering debauch that lately — even in a worthy Awards Season — resembles more of a frightening countdown than a gaze towards the future.?? ?

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For André Balazs Properties , the hotel was the past, and the future, rolled into one. It was never just an investment: “I’ve never viewed myself as the owner of the Chateau,” he said. “I’m the custodian of an institution.”?

So, how do you rebrand an institution? How do you refresh something so being beautifully worn, peopled, and imperfect?

I’ve done plenty of rebrands, but never taken myself to task on something quite so delicate, quite so treasured as it is.? I’m was driven to put my personal experience to work,?but temper it, to bridge the gap between what was, and what can be.? That’s the job of any Brand Officer:? to get close.? To feel things out. Look back long and hard, and then ahead.? To empathize with whats gone, and seek out what, if anything, can be renewed. To always stay sound, and responsible to more than nostalgia. Above all, the job is to do more than keep a businesses afloat, but always growing. That's a tall order for a property that broke ground in 1927.

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With this rebrand, I have imagined what I would show to Mr. Balazs, if ever asked:? “What would you change about my hotel?”?

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My answer is very simple:? "Nothing! But, let's have a look anyway..."

View the rebrand at JulianAyes.com and reach out with your nostalgic branding needs.

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